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Twitter limits (API, updates, and following)

Why have limits?

Limits alleviate some of the strain on the behind-the-scenes part of Twitter and reduce downtime and error pages. For the sake of reliability, we've placed some limits on the account actions below.

Current Twitter limits

The current technical limits for accounts are:

Direct messages (daily): The limit is 1,000 messages sent per day.

Tweets: 2,400 per day. The daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Retweets are counted as Tweets.

Changes to account email: Four per hour.

Following (daily): The technical follow limit is 1,000 per day. Please note that this is a technical account limit only, and there are additional rules prohibiting aggressive following behavior. Details about following limits and prohibited behavior are on the Follow Limits and Best Practices page.

Following (account-based): Once an account is following 2,000 other users, additional follow attempts are limited by account-specific ratios. The Follow Limits and Best Practices page has more information.

These limits include actions from all devices, including web, mobile, phone, API, etc. API requests from all third-party applications are tracked against the hourly API limit. People who use multiple third-party applications with their account will therefore reach the API limit more quickly. For more information on this topic, please see our API Rate Limiting page.

These limits may be temporarily reduced during periods of heavy site usage. In such cases, we will post an update on the Twitter Status blog.

What happens if I hit a limit?

If you do reach a limit, we'll let you know with an error message telling you which limit you've hit. For limits that are time-based (like the direct messages, Tweets, changes to account email, and API request limits), you'll be able to try again after the time limit has elapsed.

The Tweet limit of 2,400 updates per day is further broken down into semi-hourly intervals. If you hit your account update/Tweet limit, please try again in a few hours after the limit period has elapsed.